What
I've Believed In
by James Galvin
This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from the rich soil of Iowa’s literary tradition. Today’s poet is James Galvin originally from a ranch in Wyoming where he returns when he isn’t teaching at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. At first glance, this finely-crafted prose piece seems to be about an old junked car left to rot in the woods, a car that for years used to power a saw at the local lumberyard. If you listen closely, however, with your heart and your mind you will feel how this poem is really about faith and hope and the mysterious reason for being on this earth that may one day just clearly present itself to each and every one of us. It’s called "What I’ve Believed In."
What I’ve Believed In
Propped on blocks, the front half of a Packard car rides the hillside like a chip of wood on the crest of a wave. It’s part of the sawmill. That Packard engine runs it, or did. The rest, the belt, the Belsaw carriage and blade, stands aside in disrepair. Except for the pine seeds gophers have stashed in the tailpipe, there’s no sign of anything living. The gull-wing hood is rusted cinnamon, latched over chrome priming cocks, one for each cylinder. Every board in every building here was milled on power from that old car, out of timber cut here too. Even shingles. It’s been here since 1925, winters piling onto its forehead like a mother’s hands. It’s weathered them like a son. Just because it hasn’t been run since 1956 is no reason to think it won’t run now: waves have traveled thousands of miles to give us small gifts; pine seeds have waited years to be asked.
"What I’ve Believed In" by James Galvin from his book, Imaginary Timber published by Doubleday. It is also included in Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997 published by Copper Canyon Press.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
James Galvin is the author of five books of poetry: Imaginary Timber, God’s Mistress, Elements, Lethal Frequencies and Resurrection Update: Collected Poems, and the prose work The Meadow. He has received the Nation/Discovery Award and an Academy of American Poets Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation and the Guggenheim Institute. He teaches occasionally at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives the rest of the year near Tie Siding, Wyoming.